


Waiting

by Diaphenia



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, F/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaphenia/pseuds/Diaphenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mindy felt guilty for not asking sooner, but she was completely fine, and he’d been sitting next to her in the driver’s seat. Things were a little fuzzy after the accident, but— nothing hurt. She was ok. He had to be ok, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> With love to Rodarawr, who I texted months ago with my most bonkers idea ever. And to Rikyl, who gave me the shot in the arm I needed to finish this.

“Excuse me, I need my purse,” Mindy said to the little pink-haired punk at the front desk. 

“You don’t,” the punk said, not looking up from her Sudoku. 

“But I do.” Mindy didn’t know where she was, but between the cream-colored walls and generic hotel art and uncomfortable chairs, it seemed to be a waiting room guarded by this moron.

“You _really_ don’t,” the moron said, finally locking eyes with Mindy. 

“Listen, kid, I’ve had a very rough day. My boyfriend of several weeks gave me the ‘It’s not you, but it’s actually you’ speech. My credit card was declined—”

“Maybe you should control your spending habits.”

“I needed to shop away my feelings, thank you. My card was declined, I dropped my crueller, and my co-worker asked me to leave my nice warm home with a freezer stocked with ice cream because he had _something to show me_ , and the last thing I remember is hitting some weird ice patch and spinning out. Where is he, anyway? Is this the hospital?” Mindy felt guilty for not asking sooner, but she was completely fine, and he’d been sitting next to her in the driver’s seat. Things were a little fuzzy after the accident, but— nothing hurt. She was ok. He had to be ok, too.

The woman sucked in a breath, then turned her screen towards Mindy. She typed in some information, and there was Danny, in the back of an ambulance, bloody and broken.

“No,” Mindy said. “No no no NO.” She put her hands on the screen like she could touch him through it, or push away those stupid EMTs and fix him herself. 

And then the door behind her opened, and Danny walked in, clean and healthy. 

He looked around wildly, then ran over to her and pulled her into a big hug. “I thought you were— you looked awful,” he said, touching her cheek. “You were covered in blood, and I was so worried, but you’re ok. You’re ok.” He pulled her back to his chest, muttering like a crazy person. 

“Excuse you, I’ve never once looked awful, as long as we agree not to look at any photos taken of me in junior high,” she said, not pulling away. 

“Or any of the pictures from the company picnic,” he said. 

“Luckily for you, I’m friends with Mark Zuckerberg’s sister’s hairstylist, and I got those taken— “

“I hate to break up this love fest, but there’s something you both should know,” the receptionist said. “You’re both dead.”

***

“Please look in your orientation packets.” The woman stood at the front of their group of about twenty-five newly dead souls, smiling like she’d done this a million times. “I’m Norah, and I’ll be your _guide_ to the other _side_.”

“It’s official, this is hell,” Danny whispered. 

“You’ve already made that joke three times,” Mindy whispered back. 

“Yeah, but now there are packets.”

“So, some of you were probably a bit surprised to find yourselves here,” Norah said. “Some of you might be asking yourself, ‘What’s on the other side of that door?’” She pointed at the ones opposite the plain, serviceable doors Danny had come through. Unlike those doors, these doors were richly carved, beautifully gilded, and locked with a golden padlock. 

Mindy nodded along with everyone else. 

“That,” Norah said with a sparkle, “is heaven.”

Danny fist-pumped. “And this is purgatory! The Pope was right. I knew it, even when I doubted when I was sixteen, I knew it. Suck on that, Mindy.”

“The Pope wasn’t right,” Norah said. 

“But Vishnu was,” Mindy said, smirking. 

“No,” Norah said, patiently. “No human has ever been able to conceive what’s beyond that door. You won’t understand it until you get on the other side.”

A large ginger stood up. “How do we get to past that lock? Can we break it?”

Norah frowned briefly. “Absolutely not. You won’t get past that door until the last time your name is ever spoken on earth.”

The crowd hushed at that. “How do you know when that is?” someone asked.

“We know,” Norah said simply. “Now, you might have noticed since you got here that you no longer _need_. Subsistence, rest, clothing, you no longer require those things.”

“We get to keep our pants, right?” Danny asked, clearly alarmed. 

“Of course. But that’s a personal choice about how you decide to present to everyone here, not because it’s required.”

There was a buzz among the crowd. The older woman next to her waved her hand over her body and was suddenly in just a slip and pantyhose. It was a little shocking to see so much, but the woman clearly didn’t care. _Rock on,_ Mindy thought, _I hope I’m that brave when I’m that old._

And then she remembered she’d never be old. 

***

“You’re going to have to tell me one of these days,” she told Danny, handing him a stuffed bear. 

“Are there still days? How do you track them?” he asked, avoiding the question as usual.

“I have a vague idea.” Sometimes, she’d watch the TVs. She liked to see what Rishi was doing; he’d gotten his law degree, a side gig producing rap videos on YouTube, and a wife. He was taking care of their parents, too, which made her so proud.

“Yeah, well, there’s no point to knowing,” Danny said, a sour look on his face. “We’re stuck here.”

“You know what makes the time pass? Telling me this secret.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Danny said. “I’m going to go see how the Mets are doing.” He shoved the baby he’d been playing with into her arms. 

“Someday, Danny’s going to tell me where we were going the night we died,” she said to Harper, using her best baby voice. “Because I have to know but also hate solving mysteries.”

Harper cooed in answer. 

Mindy sat rocking her for ages until Harper disappeared. 

The golden lock clicked back into place, and everyone clapped. 

The babies always did disappear the fastest.

***

Peter died at a young sixty-seven, a victim of the surprisingly unhealthy doctor lifestyle. While they were never particularly close, due to the fact that Mindy never liked him as person, she was thrilled to have someone new to gossip with. Danny was often moody, and of course she could only hang out with her parents so often given that she’d never married or provided them with grandchildren. 

“It’s crazy here, Mindy,” Peter said, and it threw her to see how old he was while she was perpetually twenty-seven. He was still _in there_ , of course, but the years had smoothed his features, and his hair was so thin. “You wouldn’t believe how many of my fraternity brothers are up here already.”

“Tell me everything that happened after I died. Just, what happened to everyone, and how sad were they when I died? I’m guessing very sad.”

“I really hoped I’d be a younger version of me up here.”

She knew that he had that option, and she totally intended to tell him about that, but first, she wanted some information. “Spill, Prentice.”

“Well, you know, after you two died, it didn’t seem right to keep the practice open, so we shut it down immediately—”

“Liar.”

“Well, someone will shut it down eventually. But Jeremy’s still there, retired, but still shows up every other day to boss around the kids. You know he and Betsy ended up married, right?”

“Oh my god no way,” she said. She _knew_ it. Well, she hadn’t known, but she almost knew. She’d always intended to set the two of them up at some point, but other things had taken precedent. 

“Yeah, she got in touch with her inner slut-goddess after getting her masseuse certificate— and no, it’s not that kind of massage, I asked— and one thing led to another, and they had half-Brit-slash-half-normal kids. Beautiful people. I’ve forgotten all of their names, but they’re great.”

“I bet they’re beautiful.”

“Not as cute as my little terrors were.”

“It’s always so great to hear about everyone’s long and successful lives.”

“Listen, I heard we don’t get to go to _past that door_ until we’re forgotten, true?”

“Well, not necessarily _forgotten_ , but basically.”

Peter leaned back. “So I’m stuck here _at least_ as long as my kids are alive. And you’re stuck up here, god, at least as long as the practice is open.”

“Because you left my name up on the wall to celebrate my tragically short life?”

“Nah, we took down your name as soon as we got replacement doctors. I’m talking about the gazebo.”

“Gazebo?”

“Yeah, the one Danny built for you before you died.”

***

Mindy pushed Danny, hard. He didn’t fall because he had the lowest center of gravity possible, which was ridiculously unfair. “Why didn’t you tell me, asshole?” 

“That I think that thing you’ve been doing with your hair is ridiculous? What is that, are you a member of Menudo now?”

“This look is very popular now, Danny. You would know that if you ever watched the Earth for anything other than hockey.”

“Baseball.”

“Whatever. Focus. You made me a gazebo. Like with your actual hands.”

Danny’s smile dropped immediately. “How’d you find out?” he asked quietly. 

“It has my _name_ on it.”

“Well, yeah.”

Mindy dropped down into her waiting room chair. Danny sat next to her, right on the edge of the seat, like he was worried she was going to fly off into a fit at any moment. Instead, her eyes started to water, like she was allergic to weird oversized gestures from coworkers. 

“Oh no,” he said, looking around for tissues and, finding none, offered up his sleeve. “I just wanted to—”

“To _what_ , Danny?” she asked, pushing his arm away. She wouldn’t let him see her cry, wouldn’t contemplate that this _meant_ anything, wouldn’t spend the rest of her eternity trapped in a room with this man who had built her a gazebo.

“We— the guys in the office— sorta pushed you into giving up your gazebo idea and I thought I could give you that.” Danny’s eyes darted away, and she knew, just _knew_ , there was more to it. 

“So you, what, push the guys into giving up their basketball court, probably trading all sorts of favors, and swear the whole office to secrecy, and give up your weekends building it, all because you felt bad about the courtyard you wanted in the first place?”

“Yes! No, no, that wasn’t it.”

“Then that the hell was it?”

His eyes darted away. “I thought— you and I could wait out the rainstorms there, together. It was stupid.” 

Mindy gaped. She usually had a response for everything, but all she could think about was a discussion she’d once had with Danny. 

At the time, she’d been seeing a guy who was a chef whose specialty was deconstructed raw Asian fusion, possibly the most pretentious food available in NYC at the time. The chef— Jay— would send her to work with lunch boxes like they were married, or possibly like she was his child, and every day she’d eat them with gusto. One day, Danny sat down next to her and started scamming on her lunch. This wasn’t so unusual, as they often shared lunches, but this time he’d spit his stolen chunk into a napkin, falling over dramatically.

“I know you don’t like that,” he’d said to her. 

“You know nothing,” she’d answered. 

“I know you want this,” he said, pushing his own sandwich towards her, and she’d sighed, because she missed warm food, and Danny never skimped on the meatballs. Or the marinera. Or the provolone. 

“You can have half.”

“I want this delicious raw celery,” she said, trying not to just mix everything together. Celery in any form was an abomination, but she and Jay were into raw Asian fusion together, so she loved it. 

Danny went over to the lunch room drawer, pulled out a sharp knife, and cut his sandwich in half. Well, half was a stretch, as the part he pushed towards her was clearly larger. She resisted as long as possible, but eventually, she gave in, tearing into the sandwich with gusto. _Sauce_. 

He scooped up her lunch before tossing it in the trash. She didn’t even care because she’d been eating raw for two weeks and she was _so_ hungry. He pushed the other half of the sandwich towards her, and she ate that, too, and probably would’ve eaten another if he’d had more. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Danny had said as he sailed out the door. “There are guys out there who would like you for you.”

It hadn’t occurred to her then, or for the rest of her life, or her afterlife, that he’d been talking about himself. 

***

Peter was the first, but soon, her friends and peers started showing up with increasing frequency. 

Mindy missed Betsy’s arrival, so busy was she leading newbie tours. She liked leading the new arrivals, as they always had the best gossip, and she had to keep up on Earth stuff. 

“Dr. L, I just want to apologize for severely misleading you on what heaven was like,” she said, a vestige of her young innocence still visible despite the gray. “Unless... this is a test? Maybe this is all a test that I’m failing. Like God just wants me to _think_ that we’re—”

“This isn’t a test. Danny already checked.”

“If you say so, Dr. L.”

“I’m not a doctor up here, Bets. I’m just Mindy Lahiri, tour guide, fashion guru, and life coach for the dead.” Mindy laughed, but Betsy looked appalled. “Look, can I teach you how to appear young? It’s really throwing me to see you like this.” She brought her hand up to wave over Betsy’s face.

“I like my wrinkles,” she answered, scrunching up her nose. 

“You would.” Mindy scowled. Betsy probably needed a few minutes to get used to the idea. “So tell me everything about fashion right now.”

“Well, I think Sarah told me something about a new type of fabric that makes you look thin.”

“I thought there was just widespread famine,” Mindy said, sighing with relief. 

“There’s that too. But don’t worry, President Lopez-Castellano’s on it.”

“President who-now?”

Betsy’s already-wrinkly forehead creased more. “I thought you could see down there from up here?”

“I’ve been really busy,” Mindy huffed. “Wait, _Castellano?_ Any relation to—”

“Yes. Danny’s niece. We’re all really proud of her.”

“I didn’t even know Danny _had_ a niece.”

“Yeah, she’s named after him. She talks about that in all her big speeches since she’s been fighting reanimation efforts.”

“ _Reanimation_ sounds horrifying.” 

“Oh, it is. Did I ever tell you about the thing they did with Prince—?”

***

“You never told me about your niece.” Mindy grabbed a spare baby and sat down next to him. It did look rather hungry. She really was going to have to do some reading on global crises, one day soon. “President, Danny, she’s president.”

“You know I don’t like to talk about down there,” Danny said. 

“I’m going to skip the really obvious joke here, that’s my gift to you in honor of your niece.”

“Great.”

“It’s so cool. That’s your blood in the White House. I wonder if my brother voted for her. Or if he votes at all.”

“He had a good head on his shoulders. I’m sure he registered to vote at some point.”

“And Betsy was telling me all about little Daniella. Did you know she was the first president to get married while in the White House—?”

“Not true.”

“And on the lawn. So romantic. And the dress she wore was designed by Jason Wu’s grandkid, can you believe it?”

“I’m sure that’s someone.”

“He was First Designer when we died, _keep up_. And there were these little finger sandwiches that sounded—”

“And she got married in your gazebo.” His eyes slid past her. “They moved it from New York on some crazy modern super plane. To honor her dearly departed uncle.”

“That’s amazing!” She clapped. 

“I’d rather she just played some of my records. You don’t— you don’t see. Daniella, and her wedding, and your gazebo parked on the White House lawn, with little kids on their little field trips walking past it every day—”

“lt’s an excellent move on her part.”

“And every day, some nerd in a blazer is going to tell them the story about how the _Mindy Lahiri_ gazebo came to rest there.”

“I’m in the history books, which is so ironic because I don’t think I ever got past World War II in history class.”

“Which means we’re never getting past that door,” he said, finally looking her in the eyes. “We’re stuck here, forever.”

She almost dropped the baby.

***

They sometimes laid together on the floor. She didn’t have to impress him, and Danny was the only person she’d known on Earth left with her. Everyone else had gone to the other side, whatever that was. She didn’t even care anymore, honestly. It was probably awful over there. 

“Do you think it’s great over there?” She rolled over to look at him. He was, as always, already looking at her. 

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “Nah, all the cool people are over here.”

“Like me?” she teased. 

“You? No, I meant— Did I ever tell you I got to meet Ben Franklin?”

“You’ve told me everything, I think.” She rolled back, taking in the ceiling. She’d memorized the pattern long ago, seventeen thousand dots per square. 

“Have I ever told you I think you would’ve made a beautiful old woman?”

“Yeah, but we’ll never know,” Mindy said, sitting up. “I’m going to be perpetually twenty-six—”

Danny snorted.

“You know what Jeremy once said to me?”

“I’m sure I do.”

“He said he was he was proud of his gray temples and age spots and weird hair coming out of places that I’m sure it never came out of young Jeremy because, and I quote, _I earned my wrinkles_. Gross.”

He sat up and grabbed her hand. “So you’re jealous.”

“Ridiculously jealous.”

“You might have aged with grace.” Danny reached over, pushing a spare piece of hair behind her ears. “Probably not though.”

She shook her head.The idea had always been so frightening, when she was alive. 

“Oh yeah, you’d have the thin hair, saggy boobs. Which you’d overcompensate for with some torpedo bra that would make you look crazy. Maybe a little turkey neck,” he said, running a finger over her perpetually non-wrinkled neck. “Crow’s feet, from laughing. Bunions, which you’d have whatever idiot you married rub every night.” He grinned. “You want to take old age out for a spin?”

“Like right now?” She looked around, but no one was paying any attention to them. “I suppose we could. But you first.”

She waved a hand over his face, graying his hair, adding wrinkles. She waved over the rest of his body, too, puffing out his feet and giving his elbows that elephant skin old men always had. 

He waved a hand over her, and she could see her knees bag and her skin thin. She grabbed a chunk of hair and pulled it in front of her, and it was the same salt-and-pepper look her mother had had when she’d been in the waiting room, too. 

She gave Danny some age spots. “Shoulda worn sunscreen,” she said. 

“Yeah, but I’m still a silver fox,” he said. “I could give you those, too—”

“Nope.” There were _limits_. 

“Let’s go see what we look like.” He offered her his hand, clutching it as they went to find a mirror. 

Seeing herself old was startling. Aging was supposed to be gradual. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be dead, either. 

Stranger, though, was seeing Danny next to her. He really was a silver fox, wearing his old age like a Clooney, which was unfair. She could see him, surrounded by tiny grandkids, probably shooting lawn squirrels and complaining about the price of milk. 

She whirled around quickly, since there was, of course, no bad joints or creaky bones up here. “You didn’t get to be old, and I could’ve prevented it.”

He sucked in a breath. “What are you talking about?”

“We were in the car together, you know, and if I hadn’t broken up with Cliff you never would’ve called—”

“I was the one driving. I was the one that spun out,” he said, his wrinkly eyes watering. “It was stupid to wait to get a driver’s license until my thirties.”

“I was the one who wanted a stop-off for ice cream—” she said, interrupted by his, “Yeah, but I lied about agreeing to find a bodega—”

“But I should’ve just taken the subway—”

“But I shouldn’t have built a stupid gazebo. I should’ve just told you I loved you way sooner.” 

She snapped her mouth shut. He winced. “I didn’t mean to tell you like that.”

“What were you waiting for?” she snapped. “We literally have eternity here.”

“And you never guessed?”

She shut her mouth at that. Of course she’d wondered. She’d been here forever, which left far too much time for thinking. Wondering wasn’t knowing, though. 

She leaned forward, forever impulsive, and kissed him. He threaded his fingers through her thinning hair with one hand and her sagging ass with his other, pressing her back against the mirror. She groped across the slack skin on the his neck. It should’ve been gross, between the hair in his ears and the fact that he was _Danny_ , but— she wanted this, more than she wanted anything. At least, since she’d given up on the idea that she’d wake up in her apartment, having learned the meaning of Christmas. 

He pulled back, his eyes searching her. “You in? It’s ok if you aren’t. I can keep busy. I could learn to like soccer, or something.”

She smiled. “You’re a lot more open-minded in your old age.” She pulled him back to her.

***

“I have some bad news,” he said one day, holding her tight. “They’re tearing down the gazebo.”

“My gazebo? My White House lawn gazebo?”

“Well, it’s not America anymore, you know, now that the new regime has taken over. They’re tearing down the half of DC.” He crossed himself, and her too. 

“I have got to keep up with these things,” she said. 

He held her tighter, impossibly so. 

“You know what this means, right?”

“We’re going to the other side?” She glanced involuntarily at the door with its bright gold padlock. 

“Hey now, America’s not dead.”

“It sounds pretty dead, actually.”

“Right, but they aren’t going to forget my niece, God rest her soul, any time soon. I mean, one day they’ll probably forget the schlub she was named for, but.” His chest heaved, and she realized— he was crying. 

“And if my gazebo’s gone—”

“You’re going to the other side. And soon.”

Mindy felt her stomach drop. 

They clutched at each other, waiting room chair arms pressed into their sides, and waited.

**Author's Note:**

> Universe inspired by _Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives_ by David Eagleman, specifically the short story ["Metamorphosis."](http://www.eagleman.com/sum/excerpt) It's been years since I read it, but the concept has danced on the corners on my mind since I first picked the book up.


End file.
